The ‘Disappearance’ of SS-Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt A Report on the 1959-63 West German Police Search for Lorenz Hackenholt, the Gas Chamber Expert of the Aktion Reinhard Extermination Camps © Michael Tregenza (Page 33) The SK III/a report to the Frankfurt court further informed the examining magistrate that it if these enquiries did not produce any new leads, 'the investigation into the whereabouts of Lorenz Hackenholt would be terminated'. The American military authorities in Heidelberg and Washington were unable to provide any further useful information and the investigation was finally abandoned at the end of 1963, having lasted almost four years. Former SS-Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt, wanted for participation in the mass murder of over 70,000 German mental patients in the 'T4' killing centres in Germany and participation in the mass murder of over 1,500,000 Jews in the Aktion Reinhard extermination camps in Poland has never been found. If still alive today, he would be 86 years old [the article was written in 1998 - Holocaust History Project] * The complete documented record of the West German police search for Lorenz Hackenholt 1959-63 is contained in a file with the title: Sonderakte Fahndung Hackenholt (Special File on the Search for Hackenholt). According to the records of the Central Office in Ludwigsburg, three copies of this special file exist: at the Central Office in File No. 208 AR-Z 74/60; at the Office of the State Prosecutor at the Regional Court in Hamburg in File No. 147 Js 573/60; and in the Office of the State Prosecutor in the Regional Court in Munich I in File No. 110 Ks 3/64. Enquiries by the author via the Central Office in Ludwigsburg for access to these special files, however, produced interesting results. The Ludwigsburg file on Hackenholt was 'missing'; the Office of the State Prosecutor in Hamburg declared that their files are not open to the public, and anyway, they have no such 'special file'; and in Munich the file 'could not be found'. Also 'missing' from the Munich archive was a photograph album compiled by the Munich Kriminalpolizei and entered in their Daily Duty Log under Item No. K 5462 - 202/60, which contained several photographs of Hackenholt. However, a photocopy of this album was later sent to the author from Munich. During research in Germany for this article, the author was warned by a State Prosecutor familiar with the case and a police officer 'not to attempt to look for Lorenz Hackenholt'. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *    Back Page 33 Home
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